Biggest threat to humankind: Greenhouses

MAINLY because I'm not very dexterous, I'm not ready to take up singer Sheryl Crow's suggestion to limit myself to a single piece of toilet paper to "freshen up" after a visit to the throne room, but I do agree with her that the discussion is officially over: There is no doubt that global warming, cooling and general climate weirdness is occurring on our planet, and it is the fault of greenhouses.

I didn't buy for a long time the charge that the "greenhouse effect" would eventually wipe out people on Earth, thereby making it more roomy and pleasant for all the little furry creatures and polar bears. But then I saw the hard, scientific facts: There are more than 55 billion greenhouses in the world. Count 'em: 55 BILLION! (Your results might vary.) And they are all emitting strange gases into the atmosphere, gases maliciously produced by little old men and women who putter around in the greenhouses selfishly tending to their begonias, Beefeater tomatoes and chlorophytums. (Whether all the destructive greenhouse gases are coming from the plants or the little old men and women tending to them still is unclear.)

It is clear that to save the people on the planet (the planet will do quite well with people or without them, thank you), there needs to be a global decrease in the number of greenhouses. Shockingly, the Kyoto Accord, which attempted to blame global climate weirdness on countries that use steel rebar to strengthen their buildings, and ban the riding on tops of buses by people holding chickens or goats, did not even address the growing greenhouse threat.

And it's not like greenhouse trafficking is a secret. On the Internet are thousands of companies selling greenhouses to anyone who wants one. My own exhaustive three-minute investigation showed how easy it is to buy a greenhouse on the green market. There's a company in Texas that has been selling greenhouses since 1948! As with guns, since it's Texas, there isn't even a 10-day waiting period for the purchase of a greenhouse!

THE UNITED STATES, naturally, is the leading producer of greenhouses, but that is changing. China, which considers the environment an unproven allegation, is quickly becoming a major producer of greenhouses. Countries that are no friends to America, like Monaco, Libya and the Republic of Halliburton, are said to be forming a global Organization of Greenhouse Producing Countries. OGPC, much to the delight of small, furry creatures everywhere, will hold the survival of humankind in its giant, people-hating green thumbs.

Some say the only way to stop the spread of greenhouses is to cut off the demand for what they produce: houseplants. I advise Sheryl Crow to drop the silly one-toilet-paper-sheet campaign and shift to "Kill the Coleus" and "Forget the Ficus" efforts.

If we are ever going to snatch Earth back from the greedy jaws of furry little creatures, we've got to get rid of greenhouses.

Buy Charles Memminger's hilarious new book, "Hey, Waiter, There's An Umbrella In My Drink!" at island book stores or online at any book retailer. E-mail him at cmemminger@starbulletin.com